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| Mr Halifa Sallah |
European countries have continued to develop through the
exploitation of African countries via unfair trade and use of the continent’s
natural resources, says Halifa Sallah, as Africans at home and in the Diaspora
marked African Liberation Day on 25 May this year.
At a symposium at Sir Dembo Nursery School in Bundung
Borehole organised on 26 May by the Pan-African Forum to commemorate African
Liberation Day, the veteran politician cum sociologist said: “For instance, The Gambia produces groundnut,
Ghana produces cocoa, Kenya produces tea. So they (European countries) make
sure that our people produce one crop, and sell it to them. They processed it
into packets of tea, packets of cocoa, oil, etc and then come back and sell it
to us (Africans). They also take our
cotton and turned it into yarn and clothes and come and sell it to us.
“So they were getting the raw materials from Africa at very
cheap prices and they were processing and selling it back to us at more
expensive prices. Therefore, in our
trade we were always getting less than we were spending - that is called trade
deficit. It means that their economy would be going up and our economy collapsing. This is how they made us poorer and poorer
and they became richer and richer.”
“From selling their (European) manufactured goods they make
money and they take that money and invest it at a bank; so the banks started to
collect a lot of capital. When the banks make enough money, they go there to
get loan to be able to build industries and provide employment. Employment continues to increase as more and
more industries are created; therefore jobs were growing in their parts of the
world; that is why Africans are leaving our continent to go to Europe in search
of greener pasture.”
